Potential Challenges

Now that I have more or less determined my final website, I feel that all the potential challenges are surfacing.

Informing vs Advocating
I never intended for this site to be anything other than informative. I am not advocating the use of sugar (or honey), but rather sharing my experiences with the treatment and sharing additional information and literature about the healing properties of sugar. However how to I go about informing without advocating? Do I need to remain neutral? I will likely need some disclaimer as well stating that I am not a medical professional and I am not promoting this course of treatment.

Pros vs Cons
How much should the role of neutrality play? Do I need to dedicate equal space to both pros and cons, success and failures of such a treatment? While I have found a lot of scholarship, I haven’t found too much about the cons of treating wounds with sugar (though I haven’t look too hard either). Furthermore, my experience only relates to the success of sugar packing and I have no first hand knowledge on failures. Is acknowledging the other side enough or do I need equal coverage of both sides?

Images
I have my own images from my experience; however I am unsure that I will be able to obtain further images due to copyright. Any suggestions? Is a primarily text-based site ok?



Potential Subpages and layout

Subpages (in no order)

- My experience
- Healing properties of sugar/why is works
- Human use
- Animal use
- Negatives/anti sugar treatment/cons?
- Links to scholarship

As for layout/colors, I don’t have any ideas. My personal preference is clean lines, uncluttered, and easy to read. Creams/whites/pale yellow background? I need help here. Also, because some images I do have are graphic, is it necessary to highlight them on the main page? I need advice and guidance here. I’m sure a lot of this will come together as I get started (it usually does), but I still need a better preliminary idea of where to go in terms of structure, layout, and colors.

Scholarship/Background Info

I'll be honest. At the time of my horse's wound, my vet was not very helpful. After a couple initial days of treatment (flushing it out, granulex, antibiotics, and bute for pain), the sugar packing began. I wasn't there at the time but was more or less told "we're packing the area with sugar because it will help prevent infection and help heal the wound more quickly than more conventional treatments." They told me/facility employees to pack the area with sugar twice a day. I never got the chance to ask why this treatment would work and instead of asking, I did a little research myself. More or less, sugar works because, when applied to an open wound, the sugar absorbs the moisture in the would which then prevents bacteria growth. Furthermore, it also has anti-scarring properties.

I've read that honey has been shown to be more successful than sugar though, from my vets perspective, it's easier and more practical to pack a large wound (as it opened up, it was large enough to fit two fists inside) with sugar 2 times a day for 3-4 weeks than to use honey. 10 lbs of sugar is a lot cheaper than the amount of honey that would be required (not to mention easier to apply!).

I thought I'd include just some of the background articles/scholarship I have found thus far.

- Sugar's Healing Powers from the Sugar Association

- Managing Wounds with Honey & Sugar veterinary use

- Skin and Wound Infection

- Wound Management Using Sugar veterinary use treating dogs

- Why do some cavity wounds treated with honey or sugar paste heal without scarring? Discusses the anti-scarring properties of sugar/honey treatments

- Successful treatment of chronically infected wounds with sugar paste

This article poses a warning about using sugar.

- Healing Wounds and Reducing Scars

It cites a medical article that I have not yet had the chance to look for. I haven't yet found many other article focusing of the negatives of such treatments.

Sugar continued.

While I have decided to use the healing qualities of sugar for my final website, I'm having trouble deciding what subpages I should include. Any suggestions?

So far my ideas are:

1. A page that highlights my experience with sugar to treat Subi's wound. In addition to sharing my experience with text, I have multiple pictures that show the course of his treatment. I may also consider interviewing my vet as well?
2. History of the therapeutic uses of sugar.
3. Links to websites/scholarship on therapeutic uses?
4. Use of sugar to treat other animals? (Dogs, cats, etc.)
5. Human use?

The power of sugar.

The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards sugar. From what I have read and seen, sugar (and honey) have been used to treat humans as well as domestic animals such as dogs. I don't know if it would fall under the category of homeopathic medicine, but it definitely is an alternative treatment. Prior to its use on my horse, I had never heard of it, but many of the medical (human) professionals I spoken to since, have all heard of using sugar to treat wounds.

While the sugar worked well for Subi, I can only imagine the problems we would have faced if he was kicked in the summer rather than the end of October... Bees, flies, etc.

I'm including some graphic photos over the course of the injury. They are graphic so look away if this bothers you.

Day 1:
First day of packing:



Three weeks later:


Recently (no scar, though the hair's not quite the same length as the rest of his. Once he sheds out completely, you won't even be able to tell):



The idea regarding therapeutic riding is a good one, but I have no first hand knowledge about this. I know horses, but not therapeutic riding. I don't know that I have enough original content to add to this nor do I have enough interest (which sounds terrible, but...).

Project Ideas

Whenever anyone asks what my hobbies, skills, talents, or interests are, my initial reaction is always something along the lines of either none, I have no time for interests, or I am a boring person. Of course, those answers likely won't help me for the purpose of this class. Because I am doing so much right now (school full time, work full time, and a part time job), I really don't have too much time for anything. As a result, the majority of the free time I do have is dedicated to horses.

3 years ago, I bought a then 9 year old thoroughbred gelding named Subliminal (Subi). Since then, I work mostly to support him. As a result, he's become the center of my life. While in many ways (in terms of needs, expenses, etc.) he's like a child, fortunately I have the benefit of boarding him at a stable where he is cared for daily, even when my schedule does not allow me to go to the barn. As a result, I my final project will likely involve horses though I'm not entirely sure how.

About 5 months ago, Subi was having a little too much fun in the field and was kicked in the shoulder by a fellow pasture mate. Because of the location of the wound, the vets could not suture it and instead applied a technique that I had never heard of before--packing the wound with granulated sugar. It turns out, while not well known, this technique dates back to around 1700 BC and has been used on humans as well as animals. More recently, this technique has also been used in war zones to treat gun shot wounds when medical attention is not immediately available. Maybe I could relate my project to this type of treatment? I'm still working on ideas.

Introduction

My name is Sarah and I'm currently attempting my third quarter at Drexel while, at times, trying to do too much. During the day I work full time as an administrative assistant at a pharmaceutical company in Wayne and teach horseback riding lessons one night a week. I currently have no career plans (other than leaving my current admin job and finding one that I actually enjoy) but hopefully through this programs I will determine a career path.

While I use many different websites each day, three of my favorites, or at least the most interesting, are as follows:

Marxists Internet Archive, a collection of writings by many of history's great marxists.

Chronicle Forums, an internet community of knowledgeable horse people sponsored by the Chronicle of the Horse publication.

Amazon.com, I spend much too much time adding books to my wish list and have found browsing on amazon is a lot less dangerous than shopping in a bookstore.